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Chapter

Cover Principles of Banking Law

9. The Duty of Confidentiality  

Ross Cranston, Emilios Avgouleas, Kristin van Zweiten, Theodor van Sante, and Christoper Hare

This chapter discusses the legal duty of confidentiality (or secrecy) that banks owe their customers. The real problems in the application of the doctrine in practice are two-fold. First, confidentiality has a habit of getting in the way of commercially acceptable practices. There is the potential for breaches of confidentiality where a bank performs different functions. For instance, banks may like to distribute information throughout the corporate group so that a range of financial, insurance, and other services can be marketed to customers. Secondly, confidentiality can act as a cloak for wrongdoing, often on a massive scale. Political leaders who have exploited their people, drug barons, and criminals have used the banking system to spirit away their ill-gotten gains. Bank confidentiality has then acted as an obstacle to bringing the culprits to justice and recovering the booty. Confidentiality also provides one of the explanations of how international terrorists have transferred financing round the world without detection.

Chapter

Cover Criminology

5. Crime and the environment  

This chapter discusses the first significant efforts to study both the environments in which crimes occurred and the areas in which the criminals lived. This type of study was to establish a tradition that began to take hold throughout Europe before entering its best-known period in the hands of the Chicago ecologists. The ills of society, including crime and disorder, were perceived as emanating from the ‘dangerous’ classes. They were considered as vicious and depraved and, after the writings of Charles Darwin, it became easier even for educated opinion to portray them as a race apart. Any defects in morality were also attributed to the appalling conditions in which one had to live.

Chapter

Cover Criminology

13. Biological factors and crime  

This chapter presents the idea that criminals can be distinguished from the rest of the population by some unusual physical or biological characteristic that renders them inferior. Havelock Ellis cites a law in medieval England that stated that ‘If two persons fell under suspicion of crime, the uglier or more deformed was to be regarded as more probably guilty.’ When Socrates was on trial, a study of his face conducted by a physiognomist was ordered; this showed that he was cruel and inclined to drunkenness. Physiognomy, which is the assessment of character from facial features, in due course, gave way to phrenology. Phrenology held that the workings of the mind are related to the shape of the brain and skull and that measurement of bumps on the skull can provide an indication of personal characteristics.